


Scenting for Dummies

by whenshewrites



Series: A Collection of 5+1 Things [4]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: 5+1 Things, And His Leather Jacket, Derek Hale Feels, Derek Hale Loves Stiles Stilinski, Derek Hale is Bad at Feelings, Derek Hale is a Softie, Derek is a Dummy, Feels, Fluff, Humor, Idiots in Love, M/M, One Shot, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Peter Hale Ships It, Scent Marking, Scenting, Scenting for Dummies, Stiles Stilinski Loves Derek Hale, Stiles Stilinski is a Little Shit, The Hale Pack - Freeform, The Pack Ships It, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-06-30
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:49:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24994918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whenshewrites/pseuds/whenshewrites
Summary: Stiles is trying to scent mark Derek. Derek has no idea what's going on.
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Series: A Collection of 5+1 Things [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1990429
Comments: 17
Kudos: 675
Collections: Sterek Goodness





	Scenting for Dummies

Derek wasn’t sure what exactly was happening, but something was. Something involving Stiles Stilinski and his pale, annoying face. 

Something was happening. Derek had never been more sure of anything in his entire life.

It started when Stiles stole his jacket.

Derek didn’t know what had happened to his leather jacket at first. During one of the pack meetings it was hanging up on the door and the next day, when Derek went to grab it, the thing was gone.

He was pretty sure it was one of his betas.

Except, Isaac denied it, Erica got offended, and Boyd just gave him a cool look until Derek dropped the matter. He even tried interrogating his uncle but Peter only laughed and informed Derek that he harbored way too much love for his leather jacket.

But Derek was ready to kill someone. Because it was his leather jacket, it was _his_. One of the last things he had from New York and a gift from Laura before her death. He was going to track down whoever stoles his jacket and then he was going to kill them.

Derek never expected Stiles to be the culprit.

Derek was supposed to be driving the betas back to the loft, but he didn’t make it past the street that separated the way to the loft from the way to Stiles’s house. Boyd raised an eyebrow as he went left instead of right and Erica leaned forward.

“Derek, honey, what are you doing? You missed the stop back there.”

“I need to check on Stiles.”

“Is this a thing now?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Derek said in a growl. He parked a few blocks from the Stilinski house and glared at his betas. “Don’t move. I’ll be back in five minutes.”

Isaac only smirked and Boyd gave him a knowing look. One Derek didn’t care to acknowledge. This wasn’t a thing. It would never become a thing.

It wasn’t like he did this every other night.

When he pulled himself through the boy’s window that night, the last thing he expected to see what Stiles sitting at his desk, typing at his computer, and wearing Derek’s leather jacket. He just stood there for a moment, one foot in the room and one still out on the window, and just stared.

It took Stiles a moment to notice him.

And when he did, the boy yelped and flailed so hard, he fell out of his chair and landed in a heap on the floor. That finally made Derek snap back to reality and he could feel his eyes turning red.

“Stiles, what the hell are you doing with my jacket?”

Stiles looked up with wide eyes. Derek towered over him and he could hear the boy’s heartbeat running at a hundred miles an hour. Stiles’s eyes flicked from Derek, down to the jacket he was wearing, and then back up. Stiles put on a small smile and pushed himself up, nervously brushing off the leather jacket’s sleeves.

“Uh, Derek, dude. Don’t you know how to knock?”

“Stiles, answer the question.”

“What,” Stiles said, glancing down at himself again. “This old thing? I didn’t even realize I was wearing it. It’s yours, you say? That makes so much sense! I don’t remember ever owning a leather jacket. It just showed up one day.”

“It didn’t show up, you stole it,” Derek accused. Stiles’s eyes went round.

“I would never!”

“You do realize I can hear you lying, right?”

“I think that’s an unfair advantage that should not be brought into the court as evidence. Not all of us are werewolves with super senses, you know.”

“Stiles,” Derek said, his voice barely above a growl. “Give me the jacket.”

Stiles looked at him for a long moment. Then he frowned and stripped it off, grumbling the entire time. Derek all but snatched it from his hands and then turned, heading back for the window.

He didn’t even remember why he’d come here. Right now, he was too irritated and confused to trying dwelling on it.

Something was happening. And for some reason, Stiles was involved.

Derek didn’t realize this was only the beginning.

\- -

The second time Derek noticed the strange things that Stiles was getting up to, the boy literally threw himself into his arms after going on a long run. 

Derek didn’t even know Stiles ran. But the boy had come to the loft directly from school and he already stank from lacross practice. Then he announced he was going on a run, proceeded to leave all his things at the loft and disappear, only to return half an hour later literally dripping in sweat.

And then he was hugging him. Stiles was hugging him. Derek. 

And he smelled awful.

For a moment, Derek couldn’t comprehend anything. Erica started laughing so hard on the couch, she laughed herself straight off. But Derek’s brain had stopped working. All he could do was smell sweat, teenage hormones, and the faint whiff of cinnamon. 

Then he was shaking Stiles off and the boy was grinning at him, all bright eyes and white teeth. Derek smelled like sweat now. He was pretty sure it was all over his shirt.

“Stiles,” Derek snarled, flashing his red eyes. “What the hell was that?”

“I’m all sweaty,” Stiles said with a grin. Derek snarled harder.

“I know that. You stink.”

“Now you stink too!”

“Why.”

“I could explain,” Stiles said, shaking his damp hair out like a dog. “But then that would ruin the mystery. And I’m a man of mystery! Now, where do you keep your water bottles? Also, I’m starving.

Derek glared after him but Stiles didn’t even seem to notice. The boy ducked around him and headed for the kitchen and Derek… Derek just stood there. Confused and glaring. His face was a little red as he glanced toward the pack to see them all laughing and Peter— _Peter—_ just smirking from where he sat.

The werewolf wore a knowing looking on his face. But Derek sure as hell wasn’t asking Peter for help.

So he just growled and started toward the bathroom. Now he had to take a shower. Again. Derek didn’t know what Stiles was up to, but it was starting to get under his skin. The boy was acting strange. Stranger than normal.

Things kept getting weirder from there.

\- -

Derek didn’t know what to do when he came back to the loft on a school day and found Stiles passed out in his bed. 

Mostly, he didn’t know what to do because that wasn’t the only thing. Stiles was passed out in his bed and he was wearing Derek’s clothes. Derek’s _clothes._ From one of his t-shirts to a pair of his sweatpants, which rode low enough to make Derek blush.

He stood in the doorway of his bedroom and just stared for a moment. The air smelled like Stiles; cinnamon and autumn leaves. It should be strange and wrong because the last thing a werewolf wanted was another’s scent all over their stuff, but Derek found it to be calming.

That both surprised and unnerved him.

Derek flipped the light on and barked out Stiles’s name.

The boy was awake in a second, jerked sideways with a yelp. He managed to catch himself before he rolled off the bed and his hair was sticking up in all directions as he blinked at Derek. He smacked his lips a few times and blinked even more than that, and then his amber eyes sharpened and a grin cracked across his face.

“Sourwolf!”

“What is _happening.”_

“What do you mean?” Stiles said, burrowing deeper into Derek’s covers. Derek only arched a brow and jerked his chin toward the entire scene and Stiles’s entire face turned red as his scent flushed with embarrassment. “Oh, that. This. Yeah, um, I wasn’t feeling good.”

“You weren’t feeling good?”

“Nope! I was feeling a little sick so I got sent home. Except I didn’t want to go home. I didn’t want to go home because my dad would just send me right back, so I came here! And nobody was home. And since I’m sick, I’m also tired, and…” 

Stiles trailed off but the rest was left obliviously unsaid. Derek growled and glared at the clothes Stiles wore.

“And do you have an explanation for that?”

Stiles gazed down at him and his blush turned even redder. He ran a hand through his hair and shrugged. “My clothes were making me worse?”

“Your clothes. Were making you worse.”

“I made the bad decision of wearing jeans to school, Sourwolf. That’s never a good thing to do when you’re feeling crappy. But then I came here! And come on, dude, you have more than enough sweatpants.”

Derek moved forward and Stiles shied a little deeper into the covers. Derek wasn’t even about to begin to question what that did to his stomach. It felt like he had butterflies in his chest. He didn’t get butterflies in his chest. Leaning forward, Derek took a deep sniff.

Stiles raised an eyebrow from the bed. Derek narrowed his eyes.

“You don’t smell sick.”

“Dude, stop trying to go all lie detector on me! You don’t know anything about my body.”

Derek drew back and Stiles’s scent flooded with both embarrassment and… arousal. Derek swallowed hard and forced himself to turn away, moving back toward his door. He heard the sound of Stiles sitting up.

“Where are you going?”

“You’re sick,” Derek said without turning around. “I’m going to make chicken noodle soup.”

Stiles didn’t say another word but Derek could smell the warm change in his scent. He tried not to concentrate on it, stalking out of the bedroom, but it was hard. Especially because he knew his room was going to smell of those things later. His room was going to smell like Stiles, and Derek… Derek…

Derek didn’t mind that realization.

\- -

The fourth time, he thought he was beginning to understand what was going on. But Derek couldn’t be sure and he was too scared to come right out and ask.

The fourth time, Stiles ended up in his lap.

Derek had a system during movie nights and this system involved trying to ignore Stiles. Or, more so, it was trying to ignore Stiles and his stupid face.

Because Stiles’s stupid face was always doing stupid things.

Always.

When the boy wasn’t focused solely on the TV, amber eyes reflecting the images and teeth chewing avidly on his bottom lip, he had a Twizzler dangling from his lips, or a mouth full of popcorn making his cheeks bulge. There was always something. And it drove Derek crazy.

He could never concentrate on the movie. He usually didn’t even know what they were supposed to be watching.

When the pack announced movie night, Derek knew he was screwed. At this point, he’d just developed a system. And he tried to stick to it as best as he could.

Except Stiles wasn’t sticking to it this time.

Derek wasn’t sure how he ended up with the boy sitting so close he was nearly sitting in Derek’s lap, but things happened. The entire time, Stiles was pressed up against him. Shoulder to shoulder, thighs touching, knees bumping every time Derek shifted.

And he was shifting a lot. Because he couldn’t think straight.

He didn’t miss the amused looks his pack kept sending him but Derek couldn’t help it. Stiles was too close. Derek’s brain was going into overdrive. All he could smell was cinnamon and autumn and all he could hear was Stiles’s uneven heartbeat and loud chewing.

It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t even close to fair.

By the time whatever movie they were watching was only half-way through, Stiles was basically thrumming with energy and Derek couldn’t take it anymore. He tried to sit up so fast the cushions tilted sideways and the next thing he knew, Stiles was in his lap.

Derek froze and Stiles gazed up at him, a twizzler hanging out of his mouth. The boy’s pupils dilated and his teeth grinned around the twizzle and he just. Didn’t. Move.

Derek stayed frozen. The movie kept playing. Stiles stayed in his lap and casually turned back toward the TV and all Derek could do was stare. Because this was happening. He wasn’t hallucinating or losing his mind.

Derek stayed frozen in place for the next hour. Stiles didn’t bother to move a muscle.

And Derek reeked of the boy afterward.

\- -

The fifth time wasn’t even a big thing. It was a little thing. All of the little things.

Too many little things.

It was Stiles sitting right next to Derek when he brought by breakfast on the weekends. It was Stiles grinning during training as Derek pinned him down and then moving up to trace his nose over Derek’s collarbone. It was Stiles stealing all of Derek’s shirts, bringing them back when they smelled like him, and then acting like that never happened.

It was Stiles. It was always Stiles. He and his stupid face were everywhere.

“You do realize what he’s doing,” Peter said one day, sounding smug. Derek tried to ignore his uncle but that was never easy. When Peter decided he wanted attention, he got attention. And that would annoy Derek until the day he died.

“Go away, Peter.”

“Oh come on, nephew, don’t tell me you haven’t recognized it yet.”

Derek clenched his jaw and focused on making his coffee. But Peter was there and Peter was smirking at him, and Derek couldn’t concentrate on anything else. Gritting his teeth, he abandoned his coffee and turned toward his uncle. “What.”

“Don’t ‘what’ me, Derek. You know exactly what I’m talking about.”

“Stiles.”

“Yes, Stiles,” Peter said, sounding exasperated. “Stiles Stilinski, the mess of a teenager who has been scent marking you like a rabid wolf these past two months. I’m surprised he hasn’t started peeing on everything you own yet.”

Derek winced at that unfortunate imagery. “I don’t want to think about that, Peter. Please go away.”

“If you continue to ignore him, he’s just going to get worse,” Peter said. Derek flashed his red eyes but the man only grinned. “And if you’re not careful, he’s going to lose interest. He’s a teenage boy, Derek. Things can only hold his attention for so long.”

Derek resisted the urge to flinch at that. Because that was something that terrified him, although he’d never admit it out loud. 

Because maybe he did acknowledge Stiles’s advances. Maybe he did let himself admit that Stiles was… Stiles was something to Derek. More than the pale-skinned, loud-mouthed teenager that Derek couldn’t stand two years ago. Maybe he did acknowledge Stiles and everything he had become to Derek.

And then maybe he got tossed aside because Stiles was a teenager with a short attention span. Derek didn’t know if he could recover from that.

So instead of answering, he just glared at his uncle and turned back to his coffee. Peter chuckled again and Derek listened to the sounds of his footsteps leaving the kitchen. And then he gripped his spoon so hard the metal began to bend.

Derek knew what Stiles was doing. He knew what the boy was trying to accomplish. He knew what Stiles was hoping to achieve.

But Derek was terrified about what the end result would be.

\- -

Stiles didn’t think his plan was working.

He’d done extensive research— _extensive research_. He’d learned that werewolves were weird and werewolves did weird things like scenting. It was basically stating their claim. Making their mark. And the more Stiles read the more ideas he got.

The more ideas that involved a certain Alpha werewolf.

Now, he wasn’t an idiot. He knew Scott had tried scenting him in the past and Derek had started scenting him more recently. It began with soft touches across the back of his neck and then sometimes sitting too close during movie nights. And Stiles had been fine with it.

Then he decided to do some scenting of his own.

Because two could play at that game, dammit. And the more things he read, the more ideas Stiles got. By the time he had gone to bed on day one, his head was so full of plans and schemes, he could barely sleep.

But here he was two months later and Stiles didn’t think his plan was working. Short of peeing on everything that Derek owned, Stiles didn’t know what else to do.

He was sitting at his desk looking up ‘How to train your local Alpha werewolf’ when suddenly his window was sliding open and Derek himself was swinging in. Stiles yelped and slammed his laptop shut and Derek raised an eyebrow, looking from him, to the laptop, and then back.

Stiles rolled his eyes. “Good afternoon, Sourwolf. Have you still not learned how to knock?”

“Shut up.”

“Ah, I can see brought your wide-ranging vocabulary, as usual. So glad you saved that just for me. Tell me, oh Alpha mine, is there a reason for this little visit?”

“You,” Derek said. Stiles raised an eyebrow.

“Monosyllabic. That’s fun.”

“You,” Derek said again, pulling himself all the way into Stiles’s room. “Are so damn annoying.”

“Woah, okay, let’s back up a few steps here dude. What’s brought this on? What have I possibly done? This token human is innocent!”

“You’re scenting me!” Derek shouted, his eyes flashing red. “Why the hell do you keep scenting me?”

Stiles blinked at him. Then a slow grin crept across his face and he tilted his head. “Oh my god, you’ve finally noticed.”

“Stiles, I swear to god—”

“What?” Stiles said, cutting him off. “Are you going to rip out my throat for scenting you? I’ve been working at it for three months now, Derek! Erica figured it out from week one and she’s a little puppy beta. Three months, Derek. Three months!”

Derek blinked at him. He looked a little confused and a lot nervous, and Stiles didn’t know what to do with that. 

“... Derek?”

“Why are you scenting me, Stiles?” Derek asked. His voice was startlingly vulnerable. “Is it a joke? An experiment?”

“I— what? Derek, what the hell? I’m scenting you because you’re pack, asshole.”

Grey-green eyes blinked at him. Stiles swallowed nervously and ran a hand through his hair, dropping his gaze to the floor.

“And because I’m staking my claim on all that is Derek Hale.”

“What.”

“Only if that’s okay,” Stiles said quickly. “I mean, I know it’s about three months too late to be asking permission, but if you’re totally grossed out by the idea of this scrawny teenager having a claim on your grumpy self, then—”

“Stiles.”

Stiles cut off miserably, slowly lifting his eyes again. “Sorry.”

“Sorry?”

“I wasn’t trying to piss you off or anything, I swear. It’s just, there are the betas, and Scott, and—” Stiles shivered— “Even Peter. But there’s also you. Who’s protecting you?”

Derek blinked at him for a moment. Then he shook his head. “Scenting isn’t about protection, Stiles.”

“It is to me.”

The man studied him for a long moment. His face did a couple of different things before he moved closer. Stiles fidgeted nervously in his chair and Derek paused a foot away. “Stand up.

“Uh, what?”

“Stand up,” Derek said again. Stiles slowly rose to his feet and the man studied his face before tracing a hand along the back of Stiles’s neck. Stiles shivered underneath the touch and gentle fingers ghosted along his nape, then traced over his collarbone and around his shoulders. Stiles raised a nervous eyebrow as Derek drew away, still feeling the tingle of his touch.

“What, uh, was that?”

“That’s proper scenting,” Derek said. “Why do you think the pack is always trying to touch your neck?”

“I just thought they had no sense of boundaries.”

Derek rolled his eyes and Stiles grinned a little. He moved closer and tilted his chin upward, so there were only a few inches between them. 

“So what does that mean, Sourwolf? Have you laid claim to this scrawny teenager?”

Derek’s eyes flashed red. “Not yet.”

Stiles shivered. He leaned closer and then Derek’s lips were brushing against his. The man’s fingers traced along the back of his neck again, moving in the same pattern, and Stiles hummed in appreciation. That made Derek growl, the sound vibrating all the way down Stiles’s spine.

He wanted to know exactly what real claiming felt like.

So yeah, it’d taken Derek a little while to catch up to everything. Stiles was pretty relieved he didn’t have to pee all over the man’s stuff. But this, in the end, was all worth it. Stiles would do it all over again if he had to.

He dragged his finger’s over the back of Derek’s neck, mimicking the man’s own actions, and was rewarded with a soft whine. Stiles grinned and did it again.

Yeah, he wanted to lay claim to all of this.

**Author's Note:**

> This one got like 3k words away from me. I love 5+1 things way too much. And I'd love to hear what you guys thought! You're all fantastic <3
> 
> Come hang with me on Tumblr?


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